Out of Control
by Zofie C. Field
Summary: It's like rolling down a steep hill, faster and faster, out of control.


**Out of Control**

It's like rolling down a steep hill. Frightening at first, each revolution of your body distinct and startling. Then, as you pick up speed and the turns blur together, the fall becomes almost, _almost_ enjoyable.

It wasn't automatic. You didn't go from 7-years-old and innocent to 28-years-old and dark in a single day. It happened in bits and pieces, unnoticed to the untrained eye.

First this: your parents died. Love and comfort and hugs had abandoned you in a pink room that wasn't yours. And you were alone.

You began screaming at night, letting out your pain and confusion in high-pitched shrieks. You screamed and screamed until you were raw. And they came, in their white masks and gowns, to comfort you. And it wasn't okay, you weren't alright. So you kept screaming, night after night, so that you were not alone.

It took you a year to understand that your parents weren't coming back, that the life you knew was over. It took you two more to understand that your life was no longer your own. You had been claimed by these masked people.

They explained it all to you: _clone. _They told you that you were special. That there were other clones living all over the world. Little girls who looked just like you but were entirely unaware of their origins. They told you that you'd be an important member of the project, that you'd _do great things._

And you accepted this, because there was nothing else to do. Every doorknob you turned was locked. This was your life now, and you had no control over it. So you played along.

It struck you, though, over and over again. It struck you how unfair this was, that you were here and they were there. That all those little girls, the little girls who weren't _special_ like you, had backyards and puppies and snow days. And parents who loved them. And that there was nothing you could do to change that.

As you grew older, they began to give you freedom. They gave you responsibilities, power, decisions to be made. It was the first bit of control you'd been given since you were 8-years-old, whisked away in the middle of the night. So you grasped at it, tight. You held on to that control for dear life.

You began to push its boundaries, to see where it would end. You were not deluded into thinking that this was true control. You still found locked doors in this place. So you pushed, lightly at first, then harder. Pushed, looking for the edges of your freedom.

You pushed and pushed, and no one stopped you. And that was infuriating. Because there were boundaries, you were sure. You were still confined.

So you went to extremes. You gambled with lives you're meant to monitor, to protect. You threw away people like they were disposable. You burned bridges in bursts of flame. You whisked away an innocent 8-year-old in the middle of the night.

And you were unstoppable. You _are _unstoppable. You are in control of this, and it's like a drug and you want more. And there is nothing you won't do to get it.

You cross every line now. You were dragged across so many in the past, they blurred and blurred, until you couldn't see them anymore. Until they were meaningless barriers to the end goal.

And sometimes you can't remember what that is, the end goal. Sometimes you can't remember why this is happening, why you're doing this, why you're all alone. Some days are nothing but the gaping hole where guilt or family or home should be.

And if you would pause for a moment and stand very still, you would feel it coming, a storm rolling in - they day you will collapse to your knees, exhausted, and ask for forgiveness. The day you'll beg.

And in that brief moment, you would wonder if there is a point you can't turn back from. If there is a point at which you become a lost cause, where no amount of love can heal you. You would wonder if you've already passed that point.

And you would realize that you are not in control of anything. You are completely and utterly out of control.

But you can't pause for a moment when you're rolling down a steep hill. Not when you've been rolling for so long, not when you're rolling so fast. Not when you've forgotten that you're rolling at all.


End file.
